Unleashing the Potential of LTE for Next Generation Railway Communications

In an increasingly demanding marketplace that will put great strain on railway services, research on broadband wireless communication must continue to strive for improvement. Based on the mature narrowband GSM technology, Global System for Mobile Communications-Railways (GSM-R) has been deployed both for operational and voice communications. Although GSM-R fulfills the requirements of current railway services, it imposes limited capacity and high costs that restrict enhancements of operational efficiency, passenger security and transport quality. 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) is expected to be the natural successor of GSM-R not only for its technical advantages and increasing performance, but also due to the current evolution of general-purpose communication systems. This paper examines the key features of LTE as well as its technical ability to support both the migration of current railway services and the provisioning of future ones.